is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Ode on Absurdity.
This morning, as I was brushing my teeth at the house of Best Ever, I noticed that his toothpaste proclaims that it has a �great regular flavor.� It alarms me how long I spent thinking about that, asking myself what it could possibly mean, and then trying to define for myself just how absurd it is as a declaration. What, really, is �regular� flavor? Is it �governed by rules,� or �normal�? And, if so, to what norms does it conform? And, if it is regular, what makes it great? Is it particularly skilled at conforming to norms? More importantly, what does �regular� taste like? Who would seek out �regular� for tasting? Are some regulars greater than others?
To relieve your suspense: It tasted like fake mint, and not in a way I�d call great. However, it did clean my teeth, so that I could give Best Ever a fake-minty kiss before embarking on my day.
This is not so absurd, though it might be ironic. It appears that I actually did get a really great Valentine�s Day present, except that it wasn�t intended as such, and it arrived on Valentine�s Day in QB while I was on my 18-hour travel odyssey through hell courtesy of weather and Southwest Airlines. Richard sent me SIX PAIRS of the awesomely cute and absolutely necessary inflatable boot forms I have so wanted all these months but have been unable to get shipped to me from Europe. I got dizzy last night trying to blow them all up. And he also sent me an awesome T-shirt with this quotation from my GF Hannah Arendt: �Keiner hat das recht zu gehorchen.� No one has the right to obey. YOU KNOW IT. Richard is awesome. YOU KNOW IT.
To return to the circus of absurdity, however, a Kosovo Albanian leader, disgruntled with the way talks are going in Serbia, said this (as reported by Reuters): "It's like Groundhog Day. You wake up and find exactly the same proposals from Belgrade.� Wow. Really? It�s like a light-hearted movie starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell? Well! Then there is much I do not understand about the Balkans! (And that last comment, my friends, is a dark, dark joke directed at President Clinton, who used the fact of �ancient ethnic hatreds that no one can understand or fix� as a reason not to intervene in the Bosnian genocide. However, and here�s a quote from a great book on the Bosnian conflict by a journalist who tried to write about it, �if you can understand the intricacies of a draw play in football or the wild-card play-off system, as most Americans can, then you can understand Bosnia� (From Peter Maass, Love Thy Neighbor).). It�s all about what you�re willing to open your eyes to, BILL.
As if the United States knew nothing of historic hatreds based on race, culture, religion, or any other category made convenient for drawing a line past which you refuse to expand your understanding of the world!
It�s like Groundhog Day! The movie!
Oh, this one�s good! And funny. Yesterday, as my class began, one of my students was eating a candy bar, when he noticed that inside the wrapper in tiny print it said: �chocolate is a treat; consume in moderation.� He laughed. I said, �Oh, that�s there for the same reason the cookie monster eats vegetables now.� Childhood Obesity. We laughed. A student who had just walked in said, �Wait, there�s a cookie monster?� I looked at him, aghast, and then said, �PLEASE TELL ME I�M DREAMING RIGHT NOW!� and laid my head on the table. Everyone laughed. Then I looked up and said, "I AM THE COOKIE MONSTER." He looked perplexed. I said, �Have you never seen Sesame Street?� He said, �Of course, but isn�t the cookie monster a puppet?� I laughed hysterically. He continued, �How does a puppet eat vegetables?� I looked at him, re-aghast: �Dude. The same way he eats cookies!� And so on. For some time. Then I, of course, told the story about the hot leather-clad death metal cookie monster I once saw fronting a band, leaving out the part where said cookie monster made me have strangely sexual feelings.
That�s how class began. It ended differently. One student was asking a question about a statement I was making about revising our ideas of personal responsibility to go beyond legal conceptions and, through a series of exchanges, I suddenly found myself saying this: �As Nietzsche says, question everything, even what you hold most dear. Then, if what you hold most dear survives, it will be stronger. And if it doesn�t, you�ll be better off.� Man, that is BRUTAL. Where do I get off SPEAKING like that? A downward spiral of cruelty, from a cookie monster who eats vegetables to Nietzsche!
And then!
On my flight from Oakland I ran into a guy I had a crush on eighteen years ago. He was a friend of a friend�s then-BF. He rode cute motorcycles and had a cute rockabilly-ish style. I didn�t recognize him at first, mostly because I wasn�t looking at him. Such is my way during travel. He was sitting across the aisle from me, and he turned and said, �those are some rocking boots.� I was wearing the knee-high blue suede Fluevog boots, and yes, they do ROCK. In fact they do all the ROCKING that needs to be done if ever I myself am feeling a bit unable to ROCK. They rock on my behalf. Anyway, I said thanks. A couple of minutes later he turned to me and said, �Do you work for lizcoworldwide?� I wasn�t sure what he said but I knew that wasn�t where I work so I said no. Then I said, �Wait, what did you say?� He repeated himself. I said, �no, but that�s my friend Liz Dunn!� And then he pointed out who he was and why he knew me and asked how it is I came to look not a day older than 1989. So we talked. He lives in Philly. And, even though he lives in Philly, not in the suburbs, he DROVE ME ALL THE WAY HOME TO THE SUBURBS FROM THE AIRPORT. He did this even though I had to wait for luggage, and even though I also had no idea how to drive home to QuakerBubble from the airport.
Once we got on the highway, there was traffic. Bad traffic. I said, �you are now REGRETTING your kindness, my friend.� He said, �Well, no, I am not. I am a gentleman, and this is what a gentleman does.� Me: �Ah, so you fancy yourself a gentleman.� Him: �I do.� Me: �Well, I suppose that is a nice thing to think.� Him: �It�s archaic, it�s absurd, and it has proven expensive over the years. But yes, it is me.� HA. I memorized that last sentence after he said it, because it was so perfect.
He also said funny things like, when I started to offer a bit more detail about what I teach, �Yes! I was just fixing to get nosy about that.�
There�s nothing absurd about that story, except that the world just is such a place that the kindness of a gentleman sometimes appears as absurd, when it is really just kindness. A lovely thing.
Plus I�m pretty sure he thought I was hot. Which was gratifying because I think he never thought I was hot in 1989.
And, to place a cap on my miscellany of absurdity, here�s one of my favorite stories: once upon a time, in a far off place I like to call the early 1990s, my BF David Lowery, songwriter extraordinaire, etc., and I were hanging out in the Bay Area for awhile. At some point we went out to brunch with Heidi and her brother Tom, and then we were hanging around in their apartment on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when all of a sudden Heidi and Tom, who are the Jill�s-lexicon-equivalent of raised-by-wolves, by which I mean, they were raised without music, began singing a song. Now, you might think, when I tell you this, that they really were raised by wolves, subjected to the most bitter deprivation and want throughout those most formative years of life. However, I know their parents, and I love their parents, and I am also certain that theirs was a house of love and plenty. But no music. I don�t understand it, but I accept it as beyond my understanding, much like advanced calculus and �great regular flavor.�
Anyway, so they began singing a song. As you might expect, neither can carry a tune. And, strangely, neither has any rhythm, except that they both have the SAME non-rhythm. So if you ever see one of them dancing, you�ll think, wow, I am really seeing someone dance to his or her own drummer right now. It will look like she or he is dancing to a song different from the song everyone else is dancing to. Until you see them dancing near each other. And then you�ll realize that they are both dancing off beat in the SAME WAY. So, as I was saying, they begin singing a song.
And all of a sudden David is all uptight. I�m secretly laughing. And then David is all: �Are you fucking with me?!� They look confused and continue. David insists, yelling a bit, �Are you trying to make fun of me?!� And here�s why. They don�t know this, because they are musically retarded and also absolutely lacking in knowledge of who sings what song, but they are singing one of HIS SONGS. They know the song because it is on a mixed tape made by our friend Ethan, and they listen to the mixed tape a lot, so they know the song �When I Win The Lottery,� and they love the song �When I Win The Lottery,� but they don�t know that David wrote it and sings that song.
It gets better. I say, �Um, guys, that�s David�s song.� They respond, �No! It�s OUR SONG.� I try again, �No, what I mean is that David wrote and SINGS that song.� Heidi�s all, �No way. It doesn�t sound like him at all! He does not sing that song!� And etc. David�s speaking voice sounds different from his singing voice, so it is conceivable that Heidi would doubt him, but still, the amount of convincing it took to persuade them that they were mangling the man�s very own song was absurd. And impressive. And that is how this story became one of David�s favorite stories ever, too. At least for a time. Right now I wonder whether he even remembers that day. The End.
Tonight I have a date to go to dinner and the symphony with one of my favorite local philosophers. He is also a musician, a painter, and a conductor of orchestras, in addition to being a really interesting and open-minded philosopher. We met about a year and a half ago when we were randomly seated next to each other at a meal, and for some reason we ended up having a deeply personal conversation about love and mourning while everyone else went about their philosophical or other conversations around us. Ever since then we sometimes eat meals or take walks and discuss philosophy, and we always bring out the best in each other, idea-wise. It isn�t absurd, but it is like absurdity the way people come into each other�s lives when it so easily could never have happened. You know?
(And this is why I always want to thank Best Ever. I just constantly want to thank him. For just happening in to my life.)
12:35 p.m. - February 21, 2007
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